Employer-Sponsored and Self-Sponsored Participation in Collaborative Visioning

Abstract

Planners and community leaders around the nation use collaborative processes to create and advance shared visions of the future, yet these processes' biases are rarely discussed. Using data from a survey of stakeholders who participated in one metropolitan region's recent collaborative visioning process, this article compares participants sponsored at least in part by their employers during the year-long process (employer-sponsored) with those who participated entirely on their own time (self-sponsored). Although the two groups were similar in many respects, the research correctly anticipates differences in motivation and significantly lower levels of satisfaction and attendance among self-sponsored participants. These findings are consistent with the theory that the self-sponsored experience higher net personal costs of participation than do the employer-sponsored. This provides a theoretical basis for understanding and predicting how sponsorship affects self-interest when citizens participate in public planning, the important consequences this effect has, and how they might be addressed.